Isabel Garcia Schmidt: Army Spouse of the Year on Community, Resilience, and Opportunity

Peter Pappas: Well everyone, good afternoon and welcome to the Carolina Cabinet. I'm your host Peter Pappas in studio with the lovely Laura Mussler Hello, hello. And joining us, special guest, Ms. Isabel, Mrs. Isabel Garcia-Schmidt. Good afternoon, ma'am. Hi, good afternoon. Nice to see you. So here at the cabinet, we know our job is to give a voice to the conservatives of Fayetteville, Cumberland County and beyond. And we know this is the smartest hour of radio. Thank you for joining us everybody today and let's dive right in. How about that? Yeah, buddy. Okay. So, ⁓ You know, we usually have our weekly check-in. ⁓ What kind of trouble have you gotten into? No trouble. No trouble? But I had two great job interviews today. You have had since last Wednesday to get in trouble the last time we were here. You're right. Let's see. I had to have gotten in. There's no way I went a whole week. no way you, yeah, the people, yeah. No, actually I don't think I have. I think I've been so focused on getting a job that ⁓ I've not gotten in trouble. And that's weird because you all of a sudden you're picking up interviews. Yes, I am. Congratulations. Actually, I'm not picking up interviews. I'm actually going to places that I've applied for and like, hi, hello, I'm here. Wait a minute. You can't just do it online. You have to actually show yourself. Well, you then they tell you, ⁓ you have to apply online. Right. I'm like, I did apply online. I just want to introduce myself to the hiring manager. And so that's actually working. I was visiting a friend's restaurant yesterday and I'll tell you why in a minute, but ⁓ he was sitting down. was the two. the two boys and their dad were sitting down at the table in their dining room. And one of the rachers is like, brings the phone like, hey, somebody wants to ask you about a job. said, well, by all means, let's interrupt everything we're doing so we can, you know, but I can be a little smart ass. A little, a little, little, well, I want to match my stature. mean, let's not get, you know, right. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. My focus this week has been you and your family. Yeah. So, You know, we normally do joke about what kind of trouble, but this week's a little bit different. It has been. And I forgive me, but I am going to read a little bit so that way I don't start. I understand. Moting. So, so many of you know my dad, Bill Pappas, he passed away this Sunday. He was 80 years old. My dad immigrated from Greece in 1968. He was an entrepreneur, restaurant owner, husband, father, storyteller. had some good ones. I had to leave one out of his obituary about him and the Greek army and watching those evil Turks at the island of Gros. Yeah. Okay. We'll talk about that later. And he was one of the strongest willed people that I knew. Like a lot of the people in his community, a lot of his village ended up here and in Greenville, South Carolina. But he built his life through persistence. He sacrificed a lot. Just discipline and determination, nothing. was in his way. And if you knew him personally, you probably have a story or two about him because the restaurants were life. mean, a lot of who I am, the good, and especially the difficult that came from him. so I'm finding that losing a parent, it's not easy. And we were grateful that family was surrounding us and, you still have family coming in from Greece and all kinds of have people coming in from Greece. you know, but the way everything took place last weekend, you know, he fell ill and then we were able to say goodbye. Now next Wednesday, the 27th at the Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church. Of course, if you don't know, come on, that's where we get the spaghetti and the festivals. Don't act like y'all don't know where it is. Starting at 10 a.m. will be a viewing with funeral services at 11 and then we are taking him to Lafayette Memorial Park. Did you get the family club? did get the family club. job. You know, I have to buy in bulk. can't, you know, I, yeah, come on. It's this much for this one or let's just, you know, and my mom, my poor mother, she has to had to deal with my, and I keep messing with her like, you know me 48 years. Like what, why are you getting mad at me right now? You know, why do you get perturbed with what comes out of my mouth? Basically, I say whatever the hell. But yeah, I did buy in bulk. Good. I was hoping you would because you were like, so let me I want to say something about that So like some of the plots they want to sell you they're like you got the curb and then there's like one two rows of people that you have to step on basis You're stepping on people. Okay, let's not stepping on people. Let's just be honest. There's people down there So we have to step on two rows of people and then get to like the the bear like the four that are like Embedded in that area and I was like, all right, first of all, ma We always if we went anywhere we were usually late And we always sat at the edge of the seat or the pew, especially in the church. So we'd get the hell out of there early. So to me, I'm like, look, put them on the curb, you know, make it close. So we ended up by their mausoleum and it's very private. And bonus, now I have a place to put our Greek statues. Nice. We are the movie, Isabel. You haven't learned enough about me yet. But there's, don't have that with me. I left it up front, but, uh, you know, I was wondering what the heck I'm going to do with these Greek statues that were at their old house. I'm like, Why not? family burial plot. Like what exactly? What's more final? I guess anyway, that's a little morbid, but anyway, uh, so that's what's going on. So hopefully those of you that knew my dad or know me, if you'd like to come it's next Wednesday starting at 10 and this is going to be a long day. And, uh, all of a sudden I'm the grownup. God help me. You've been the grown up for a while. just, you, you're fighting it tooth and nail and your mom keeps you on track. Well, I have told people, said, look, it's tough, but you know what? My dad, I'm well trained and my mother will admit the same thing. We've received good training. ⁓ although when he would be mad at my mother recently, the last few years, I would say, well, it was your training. You forgot the end part. This is your fault. You know, and, I don't think my mama liked that joke too much, but that's, That's how we were. You know, I told you before air, you know, he asked me weeks ago, ⁓ there'd been a little lapse in our, in talking to each other every day. And he, he calls me and says, are you going to come see me before or after I die? Both. I said, well, when are you going to be nicer? And that was the way we spoke. That was people would hear it and think it's the worst thing, but that was just my dad. So he was one of a kind. Yes, he was. Well, But speaking of resilience, sacrifice and family service, today's guest really embodies all of those things. Joining us today is Isabel Garcia Schmidt, the 2026 Armed Forces Insurance Army Spouse of the Year. That's a mouthful. Holy smokes, yes. She is an entrepreneur, an advocate for military families, former army officer herself, and someone who has spent years helping military spouses navigate the realities that come with serving this country alongside their families. Isabel, thank you for being today. Tell us all about yourself. ⁓ my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for the invite. My condolences. Very nice to see you and thank you for that. ⁓ I know that when I go, I've asked my family to turn me into a tree. Just wrap me around the base of a tree, inoculate me with some mushrooms and put me in the ground. And then somebody can chop that tree down 50 years later and make a bench. I'm not sure if that's an option for the Greek Orthodox. I know we can't cremate. So I'm going to ask about that one. So we're Catholic. I don't know. I'm going to do it. Because if I end up Burnin' for that, I think that's shenanigans. I cremated my son because I want to take him with me if I move or whatever. I'll try that. I'm going to ask about the mushroom thing, but continue. Tell us about more about yourself. You would like the mushrooms probably. I probably need them after this. Yeah. So yeah, so AFI's 2026 Army Spouse of the Year. think it's really awesome to get that pat on the back to get that acknowledgement. I think the award itself is about building community. So individuals who are building community, doing things to support the greater military community around them. We know that when our service members deploy or when they're engaged, even when they're just off in training, it gets really hard to do the things that we often just take for granted, that daily stuff. Without a community that you build around you, military life can be hard. And the demand is be resilient. We can't be resilient if you don't have people. You don't have people that you can lean on. so I think a lot of it is just that community building, community focused work that we do myself. I am an entrepreneur in this stage of my life. My build is about helping military spouses find the employment that they're looking for, or perhaps look into entrepreneurship. know that in the beginning on this journey, it was about supporting the spouse club efforts, the Cub Scout efforts. My children are now grown. I've got. One that's an eagle already, and I've been a scout leader before, and one that's gonna finish up an eagle project here pretty soon. ⁓ I'm happy to be the person that other people can look to to ask questions about community building and support. I am delighted, quite frankly, I love my life. I'm delighted to be in this community. I think it's really special. I can't say enough about the benefits of military life. know for me, coming out of a small town in South Texas and then going through ROTC, becoming an Army officer, that was life changing. Life changing, life affirming. It's different to decide to sacrifice. And I think for anybody that's thinking about joining the military, the question that I ask is, are you willing? Are you willing to lay down your life for your country? Forget about benefits, forget about community, forget about any of that build, right? That's the question number one is, you willing to do this? If the answer is yes, then I would encourage you to do it because it's been a multiplier for me in my life. I met my husband in the military and we've got a phenomenal family that I like really love hanging out with. ⁓ so that's just, that's a little bit about like me and who I am. I want to know where she gets her energy from because her energy has not changed a bit since she walked in the store. I don't know, it's my parents I guess, my dad is living with us the two years that we're here in Fayetteville and it might be longer actually, we'll talk about that here in just a second. once you get sucked into Fayetteville, you don't get out. I know, it's North Carolina, so like I'm not a city slicker, like I am a city slicker because I was raised but in a very small town. But I want to be on a farm somewhere. Well you can do that here in Fayetteville, there's a lot of farm communities out on the outskirts. people that say they're going to be here for two years, they end up here like 10, 12, 14 years. I get it. I've already spoken to my husband. I think it hadn't been six months. We got here last August and I'm plugging in in really good ways and I've already told him, look, I really like it here and it's the people. So my energy comes from other people. I work from home because I'm running two businesses from home. I hate it. I absolutely hate it I don't have enough people around me. And so like I do feed off of community. We landed here. go to the Walmart. in Aberdeen and even the Walmart employees are coming up to you and are you lost? Do you need something? And then the sugar biscuit honey bear stuff. I love it all day long. Like, Oh, sweetie, like, Oh, honey, honey biscuit. It's so cute. Uh, everyone that I have encountered in the area is like that and it's genuine. It's not like when you go a little further south and it's that, um, what is that? Bless your heart kind of does. North Carolina is special. I, I don't know what I expected. I definitely expected better than where we came from. Everybody's really angry about traffic up there. We were in Northern Virginia. I did not want to go back there. That is a shark tank. Coming down here, everybody's just sweet and polite and friendly and I love it and I want to stay. Okay. Well, you lived life both sides. You were a service member and a spouse. So, I mean, how different were those experiences? I mean, you. How long were you in the service before you got married and had family? Four years. I did my, when you go through ROTC, you have a contract, you sign a contract, you owe back time. I owed four active years and four inactive years. I did four active years and then I did, I think it was eight in the ready reserve and then they, and then they just, you lose your commission. But I became a spouse, I've been a spouse for 20 years this October. Okay. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Everybody has their own choices to make and I am an entrepreneur at this point, but in that middle portion of my life, I knew when I was getting to the end of that contract that I didn't want to continue because I knew that I wanted to have a family. I wanted to get married and have kids. Can you not do that in the military? You can and a lot of people do that. I know me and my energy. I didn't want to split my energy in those two ways. And again, everybody makes their own decisions and kudos to the moms who are like, I'm gonna work and be a mom at the same time. I think that's fantastic. Everybody should have, should be able to make those choices for themselves. But for me, I knew that I didn't want to split that energy. I wanted to put 100 % of it into my kids and my family. And I did that and they are incredible. And then when they reach the age where they're a little more self-sufficient, that's when I started to look at getting employment and changing. the trajectory of where my life was at that point so that I could build for my family in the future. And so my whole life is about building my family, right? Changing my family tree, changing things for us foundationally. My parents were migrant workers. They were the kids in high school who had to leave early and they would come to school late because they were up north picking the food that we eat. so changing that, changing a lot of dynamics has to do with how you focus that energy. And so I focused it. my family and then when they got old enough like I said I started businesses and now all that seems to be working out but I so I wanted to ask you you know you've come very far in your life I go into college and do an ROTC and all that were your parents did they did you have anybody in your family that was military affiliated that kind of said this is a good path or was this just you trying to get out of small town it's me trying to a small town but the seed had been planted so my grandfather was recruited my grandfather my paternal grandfather was recruited along the U.S. Mexico border to fight in Korea and that was his path to citizenship. when he was approached, he said, not only yes, but like, hell yes, I'm going. And he went and fought in Korea for the United States and that's how he became a citizen. And he never talked about that and he died. Unfortunately, he died really young. I was 16 when my grandfather passed away. So I hadn't even gotten to the point where I knew to ask those questions. In middle school, I had a vice principal who planted a seed about ROTC. said, hey, if you guys ever consider the military, I was an officer, you have to go to college first. So now I'm in college, fast forward. I'm at UT in Austin. I come from a small town. You can be big fish in a small town. You landed a school like the University of Texas at Austin and you are nobody in a sea of 50,000 students. That was a hard learn for me. I decided to transfer out to a smaller school, but I left my academic scholarship behind. And so now I'm looking for new ways to figure out college and ROTC presented. I watched one VHS tape of like these cadets like traipsing through the woods and they're like on little like rubber wrap dinghies and I was sold. I'm like, I want to do all of that. That looks amazing. Yeah. So I took an ROTC scholarship and that really just catapulted me to where I am now, which again, I love. Okay. So you mentioned community support and how did I always wondered, so you didn't grow up like as an army brat, you were pretty much just white bread American basically. You just were in one place, which is fortunate. ⁓ but, ⁓ how do you, how do families keep home? How do they keep stability when they keep having to move left and right? How do they, cause like, I know I'm going to leave here and I'm going to have my, I got my comfort zone at home and I'm going to be there. How do they recreate that over and over and over? That's the question. I think it's different for everybody. I think for us it was creating a space that feels like home. So for me it was how I curated what the house looked like. That was one thing, right? And then just making sure that we're having, know that we have and maintain open communication with the family and the kids. And so this is the life that we live and this is what it looks like, always remaining positive, looking on the bright side. We can look at a vase of dead flowers, right? And say like, it's a vase of dead flowers. But you can also look at that as like that's the end of that, joy that those flowers brought and like it's a journey, right? And so if you perceive things positively, and I'm not talking about toxic positivity, I'm just saying like have a really great outlook on life. Cause there's a lot heavier things going on in the world, right? You can maintain a very healthy household. It is not easy to do that. And so when folks talk about our community, the military community and resilience, and you've got some people that buck against that word and I don't blame them, right? Because it's expected of you at this point to be resilient. They're bucking because it's not an easy thing to do and you can't just say it. I don't know, it's a little bit of magic, I think, and every family has to figure that out for themselves. I know for us, we decided on a homeschool journey. Part of the magic was not waiting around for dad. So dad had, you know, these key developmental positions that pull him away and into work for 12, 14, 16 hours at a time. I just decided, I wasn't gonna sit around and wait. And so I grabbed the kids and we did something called world schooling. So I would literally take advantage of the free flight options that we had when we were living overseas. And I would travel the kids all around to learn things and school at the same time so that they're not also losing those small school communities, right? And so that was part of what I did in my home was keep them with me so that I wasn't constantly ripping them away from like these bigger communities that they had. When they got old enough, we did decide, I did want them to go to normal, normal quote unquote, sorry, all the homeschoolers. We're totally normal over here. I did want them to have that high school traditional. There's the word traditional high school experience. did that, which I think is great because now they'll go on. I've got one who's already a collegiate athlete and the other one who will be, but, ⁓ curating the space, right. Without just your, energy and your attitude. And then it's also your. And so recreating my home space the same way for the setup to look the same for the kids That's about that furniture and that's part of why I got into to moving which maybe we'll talk about Well, let's talk about it because I'm that's really you know, it's a very simple thing that I just overlooked I mean just create the same little little alcove or the same Recliner with the right pictures, I I mean exactly. What is your little secure area look like? It looks like the red couch that we got in Germany and the two red chairs and the catacomb chest and the same artwork on the walls, which are ⁓ dead bugs. Drawings of bugs. And I love them so much. know the kids are like, that's so weird, but it's something that they can laugh about. So I know that in 30 years at the Thanksgiving table, right? When I'm hopefully surrounded by the kids and the grandkids and all that, that they can laugh about those things. And so like I, I, I am living my life in reverse is what I say. Like I see the ending. And then I try to live every day to for that ending. Right. And so, well, you've created the connective tissue to have a shared, shared memory. So let's talk about your moving. Is that logs mill moves logs and mill moves. So I'm to put that up so everybody can see that. It's not going to let me move it, but it's on space. So that's your, that's your website logs logs and mill moves.com. So tell me about what I will find when I go there. You will find a resource for anyone who is PCSing. So anyone who's experiencing a permanent What is PCSing? For those I know what it is, and we're in a military town, so most people do. However, there are people that don't. Yes, ⁓ PCSing, a permanent change of station move. So you get orders, and those orders direct you to get to that next place. And so the next step that you have to execute is going to your transportation office or going online and ⁓ scheduling your move and there are two ways to do that. You can move with the government or you can elect to do what's called a personally procured move. So you procure your move services on your own. We set out to be that personally procured mover for military families. So we want families to reach out to us because we walk you through the best move you've ever had because we've done it. My co-founder and I have done it umpteen times. I myself have moved 13 times. We know what it is that military families need and then we've worked for seven years to find the right partners to work with partners that see the vision that we see which is protecting military families obviously as business persons right looking at the lifetime value of a customer if you treat them while they tend to come back and we've been pretty successful we're really proud of what we've built and it's a hundred percent veteran and military spouse owned and operated so what makes you different than me getting ⁓ i don't know covan or somebody to come in move me like what what makes you unique communication okay yeah that's the number one and then quality we are we are laser focused on quality and so we are consistently working to find partners who are the best partners that we want to pair with our military families. So you do moves from here to overseas, from just here to cross country. I know you go to Hawaii. Everywhere. So you can move anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the world. And you can be military or not. Our niche market is the military move market because that market did need a solution for families that were frustrated. think the number one pain point is communication. We figured out how to solve that. And then everything else is Well, my co-founder says figure out a bowl because things need to go in a box a certain way. And then those boxes just need to go in a bigger box a certain way. And so if you get, if you get those things right, that's not the harder part to execute. Really the harder part is making sure that you're communicating consistently with families and you're providing with the service that they need. So, and we're not, we're not inundated with volume. We're a small boutique operation. What communication do you need? So I have, that was one of my questions, you know, what's really broken with this process, but I think you've, hit on communication like a dead horse. like, so what does communication look like in a traditional PCS move? guess military issue. does it look like? So that gets at a different point. We're not, not bad mouthing the arms. Not at all. What does it look like for a younger soldier say that doesn't have the knowledge or the, maybe the clout to look for. the department of war has essentially they run contracts right and what happens with that contracting is that you've got a central transportation service provider that is essentially a broker and they broker the shipment down to an agent and then that agent brokers it down to a driver we go direct to driver so that's the difference so what happens is like the telephone game you lose things in between all of those layers that's one but you also lose money between those layers and so now you've got less to pay the operator on the ground we've as business persons, right? We know that small business drives our economy. It's the main driver of our economy. And so you have to take care of the folks who are actually doing the work. And Logs and Millmoves is set out to be that complete partner. So not only are we taking care of that end customer, but we take care of the service provider as well. So we're able to pay more on the ground and then we're communicating directly with our family. because what is that two or three layers you can cut out? Right. Yeah. Wow. So you do the dispatch for the ⁓ trucks? Sometimes. Yeah, it's different because we have some agent partnerships, but that's a really great question. And then we've got some drivers who are operating on their own authority. And so we're working directly with those drivers. But yes, that's essentially it. We just cut out additional layers. we're to provide more compensation for the folks doing the work on the ground and then we never lose communication with the customer so a traditional broker is going to take your move and then just hand it off right to a third party and then you're not going to hear from them again they took a booking fee and they're done we don't do that what we do is provide the complete communication accounting like all the office pieces for the movers that we work with and so they're just executing on the job we do everything else and never lose we never lose contact with the customer have things improved at all with the way the Department of War handles like breakage and stuff like that with these with these movers? I tend to think and I should have researched it before you came in the room, but I feel like there was an increase in like what they could claim recently with insurance or something. So you've got, yes, you've got some protections that they've put in. However, The system is still broken and it's broken because last year was the the global household goods contract rollout It was then that contract was then pulled back that sounds what I was. Yep And so folks who were in that system who are experiencing having to go through the claims process are Having trouble right finding what the solution is because there was no plan for how those claims are going to be paid out So once the contract was cancelled those folks have all been left hanging and i think that there are entities now who are working with families to help in the p p a has been set up by the department of war i think it's it's based in the pentagon ⁓ but no and the process is still really muddy because that dollar that we're talking about earlier the t s p is one who ultimately is responsible for that claim but then they can be subrogate just like any insurance it's not insurance called valuation moving but then they would subrogate down to the agent and the agent would subrogate down to the subrogation means they're trying to put blame on somebody else. And so that's you're right. So that's essentially what it is. It's just a blame game and it all just keeps rolling. then the meantime, the family's up for you. service member for a year to get their claim money with logs and moves. It's different. So everyone that we work with, they're accountable. So we say like you pay it out on the street. If you damage something, just take care of the customer. And then if they don't or a customer finds something later, logs will more often than not just take care of it. Yeah. We don't, and our claims to revenue ratio. on over a million is .007. So we're not paying You haven't broken much. No. Okay. All right. I remember when we moved to Hawaii, our TVs were broken. got our chest You're in Hawaii. You don't need TV. Watch the ocean. I know what happened to your shipment. I know exactly what happened. They picked it up. They took it to a warehouse. They unloaded it. It sat on the warehouse floor for however long. Then it goes into storage and transit. Then it came back out. Then it got loaded into the container. then so what happened is the storage portion of moves like that. That's where stuff is just getting damaged because you've got you don't have the mover that saw you on the street You have movers who are working in the warehouse. They might be making 12 bucks an hour I don't know what it is here in Fayetteville, but it's not much and so those folks aren't there's no incentive But they're moving large boxes and if it's not packed well, it probably wasn't packed it if it's broken It wasn't packed at all. I mean our chest of drawers our kids had all of their ⁓ their chests when we had good wood ones and they were And I was like, what did they like drop it on the ground? mean, they must have like dropped the entire palette or whatever that might have happened that does happen and you don't see accountability. Nope. And then they're like, okay, well we'll give you a hundred dollars for this. I'm like a hundred dollars. I have a receipt. This is a $1,200 chest of drawers. Um, but you bought it X amount of time ago. so we got to depreciate. No, you can't replace it. That's right. The problem. Like, now I can replace it for a hundred dollars because I'm buying press board because nobody makes it anymore. Right. But you can't replace that old stuff. yeah, that was pretty disappointing. So it's just important to find a network that does care and that they understand the long term vision. And so what we're trying to build is something that is lasting, that's going to take care of families, which is why it's a slow build over at Logza, but it's deliberate and we care about families all along the way. Like we take it personally, every move. How many moves a year do you do? So this is a really great year for us. We do over a hundred but we're doing over over a hundred in in the main season Which is big for logs because again, we're a boutique operation. We're not there a season. Oh peak moving season. Yeah Don't you notice the military comes in waves? noticed that my door opens about the same all through the year That's part of that moving we move in the summertime because people have families and kids and so it's a lot easier to move children when they're not in the school year So the powers that be, right? The people pulling the levers decided we're all gonna move in the summertime and we're all gonna move right about the beginning of June. And so you've got a peak season that runs about, it used to be May 15th to about August 15th. It's shrinking every year. the spring. I notice a big influx in the spring, just as soon as school gets out, people show up. Yeah, they're moving. It's not lasting as long now. It's roughly six weeks now, but starting about May 15th to the end of- And how far in advance? mean, if I get- If you get your PCS orders, how long do they have to get to find you, to find a you? mean, or is that something that comes with the orders? Like, hey, how does that work? that's part, so with your orders, you have to have your orders to book your move, but not with logs. So with logs, you can give us tentative dates. I've got a customer that booked us a year and a half out. She said, these are my dates. I know we're going to move in a year and a half. And as I get closer, I'll like whittle it down. We allow folks to do that because it doesn't. cost us anything to have you like sit on the calendar and then as we approach the date you know we can kind of whittle down what it is that you're going to need. It helps us service our customers better and then it helps us to build the network out because we can start to talk to drivers like hey we're going to have X amount of work for you because they do need volume to sort of keep up with those tractor trailer payments but yeah you can book out early with us in the DPS system. They're not wanting to book you outside of a couple of months and then you're not really going to get a signed a mover until about sometimes even inside a two week window, which is really tough. And it's because those large transportation service providers, those big, big companies, they're trying to book 30,000 shipments over the summertime. And so you do become a name on a list really with all those big names. Is it part of the PCS moving that they're helping to pack the house up or how much of that is on the service member? Like how much participation does the mover have with? Helping to get the house. You said two weeks and I'm thinking, holy crap, that's a lot of China to wrap or whatever. no, packers and loaders are packing and loading you in two to three days. Our teams, we've we've partnered with some excellent teams across the country. We can get you packed in one day and then loaded the next. If you've got more than 15,000 pounds, maybe it's a two day pack and then a third day load, but that's typically all the time that it a 15,000 load? It like a three bedroom house, four bedroom house. It's a three to four bedroom house and it's about a moderate amount of stuff, you know, items in the home. to what one day to load or one day to pack one day to load. That's because this is what they're doing for their job. There's a difference with you and I moving ourselves and we're packing and we're talking on the phone and we're putting our laundry in the thing. You've got a team of people, four to six people that walk in and pack. Exactly. That's what they do. and Laura hit on it. Because she's like, throw that away, throw that away. I'm doing the work. She's just telling me what to do. No, and she's right. And you would bring more people. So for 15,000 pounds, yes, you would bring six people out. For 10,000 pounds. But I you're actually wrapping stuff, and that's what they're doing. Yeah. And they've got that spatial awareness. They know how to pack boxes. They know what works together. They know how to do it. It's heavy on the bottom, not as heavy in the middle, lightest on the top. Same with the truck. The harder, I think, the really cool artful part of moving is watching the master loader put together the load in the trailer. That's pretty spectacular. And do you find a lot of veterans and stuff that you're employing by on the trucking side and the packing side? Are you seeing military spouses? what, who's the workforce that makes that up? So some military spouses, we started out as a packing entity here in the Bragg area. When we launched the company, we launched out of Fayetteville and we had a lot of great Packers that we, I was living in Korea at the time. I trained them remotely. I trained them on zoom and they had zero claims in four years. Our pack teams here running at brag. ⁓ that's shifted a little bit COVID change some things for us. lot of those military spouses were able to find remote work, which they enjoy more because now they're, it's a little more flexible for their family and they can take that job with them. ⁓ but no, we've partnered with network partners on the ground and then our military folks, what we want to do is find. more veterans who are driving who have their own authority were running tractor trailer and they need work and so that's the work that we can connect to them with since we're doing that you know we're doing the marketing and pulling the customer they have to bring their tractor they have your trailer they gotta have both they've got to have both okay i'm will get into that eventually but i think right now the model is working we're providing the service other larger transportation service providers can't provide well enough and so that's sort of the piece of the dollar that we take is providing all of those admin bits and the communication bits. I hope you go to sleep and dream of just trucks with logs of mail moves. do every day I do. So now I would presume that it would be, it's also less time to get your household goods because I know when we, they're like, okay, it'll be there sometime within this two week window. You're like, ⁓ yeah, we don't do that again. I was thinking like, happens? The guy shows up and it's like, Where's my stuff? Well, we've been there. You've been there and you're waiting for days and days and they're like, ⁓ they're held up. you're like, ⁓ good for them. that's because there are, again, tens of thousands of shipments that they're having to coordinate with, the people that are in their network. And so they're trying to stitch together what they need to put on a truck to maximize profit. Right. That's, has everything to do with a profit margin. So if you can squeeze two shipments onto one truck, then you're going to do it. ⁓ we don't operate that way necessarily start with the customer we know the experience is what matters and they'll continue to come back and even if the margins are slightly smaller ⁓ the move is better and i don't have to deal with claims on the backside right so we tend to do we have more of a two to three day window and peak season you have to be a little more flexible trucks to break down you know you'll get up a driver will get a flat tire but it's not two weeks and when a customer says i wanted door to door that is music to our ears that's what our drivers want so we try our best to get them that door to door. We waited as long as four months for our stuff. That's so wrong. know we're in there with you're moving again in like a year and a half. That's exactly right. Well, when we got here that we just stayed. So yeah, hear that. Four months. of people do that. We have a very large, there's very few people that are like myself that born, grown up, went to school, stayed here. Most people get the hell out of here. Or most people are transplanted in. I think about two or three thousand people through attrition leave Fort Bragg a year and stay here. Our move was from Hawaii to here and we had to wait four months for our stuff. That's why you're here with a family of three kids. Yeah. And you're like, um, mattresses on the floor. We're camping for four months. That's it. Yeah. But I just like, I'm going to use the phrase you people. I love you people. Y'all are special. But back to you people. you like, ⁓ you're just such a little like entrepreneur and very intelligent. So tell me about your other, your other hard to spell business. Guerrero leather. I love that you asked about Guerrero leather. business, the heart of that business is to help fight or combat human trafficking across the US Mexico border. And so a failed adoption attempt. led to that company. It was a realization that folks, some folks in Mexico need jobs, right? Like the reason that there is this mass migration is that there is the desire for work, right? There's the desire to do something different for your family. It's how my granddad landed here. Someone just happened to say, we just happened to be in this Korean conflict and they said, you want to go fight for America? Yes, I do to become an American. Well, kudos to those recruiters. Okay. ⁓ I've worked in the town of Guerrero for 20 years. The first thing I did when I got out of the army was go down to a clinic in Mexico to help with translation. It's a medical clinic. Eye and dental clinic provides cataract surgeries. many years later, I met a young lady. We wanted to adopt her. Turns out, adoption out of Mexico into the US is really hard. So then we started sponsoring her. But she ended up like a lot of young ladies do in small towns in Mexico. She ended up pregnant at 15. the gentleman ends up crossing the border illegally paying a coyote to cross. She calls us about, I guess it would have been like a year, maybe a year and a half later. And she wants to follow him across the border. And so she called to borrow money. And I said, absolutely not. That's human trafficking. Like that's the definition. Number one, number two, it's all cartel run and you'll end up dead. You're either in debt for your entire life or dead. So let me think on this. And I had learned, I taught myself leatherworking. during COVID in Korea, just as for fun as a hobby. That's exactly how my brain works. And then decided, you know what, I can, I can do this. I love leather. love quality leather. you made? Like what was, if you could share it So I made bags. Like I loved, I love bags. I love shoes. I'm a girl. Um, but took it, took started the business down there and trained our folks on belts because belts are not hard but you can learn all of the important things how to cut, to burnish the sides, how to punch, how to sew. And so we make really beautiful belts and we're expanding into bags. Now I've got several bags that need to put onto our Instagram and our website. But yeah, if you support Get Out of Leather, you support economy in Mexico and you support US business because the idea behind Get Out of Leather is to allow us to create the products that you want for your business. And so if you're a business owner who wants to expand into leather, give us a call because what I want is to wholesale to you and give you a way to build your business in America by using labor in Mexico that'll provide a good product at a good price for you as a retailer here in the States. how many employees are you working right now? We're going into our fifth and then the goal is to have hundreds, right? At the end of a decade like that would be That would be phenomenal. I hundreds of employees there who are supporting American business owners here. Well, you brought up a very important thing that I think a lot of people overlook with the illegal trafficking, with the migration coyotes and cartel run and people. always, think we flippantly say, I know I do say, look, when people stop dying to come in this country, that's when we have a problem. They are sincerely, I mean, being held in servitude by these cartels you mentioned for life. Absolutely. It's a business. The cartels are business. And so they'll cross you and you will owe them at a really high interest rate. Talk about like the car dealerships here, right? It's 27%. Same thing, right? Like you're going to owe us this amount of money at this interest for the rest of your life. And they've got that hanging over you and you can't ever pay it back. Or if you're just not worth it to them and maybe your organs are worth more. I mean, I'm just, let's be real. Buy and we'll just get those sold on the black market. I mean that's it's a business just like any other business That's the thing. It's an ugly business. It's super gross and not if you needed the Yeah ⁓ Well, Ms. Schmidt, Mrs. Schmidt Schmidt, I like the good strong German name ⁓ Where can people go to learn more about you? Is it do you just want to direct people to these websites to learn about you? Or do you maybe have a personal site? I have a personal site. Yes. I'm on facebook as is well garcia Schmidt I have an instagram as well as isabel garcia Schmidt that I don't keep up with that and I am on linkedin so linkedin for business definitely linkedin is is the place to to find me Well, definitely, I will never forget my first message to you. I said, congratulations on military spouse of the year. you, or was, what did I say? Army spouse of the year? No, like military. No, no army. So was the other way. Shelby Bateman is your military spouse. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Well, before we close today, I want to thank everyone who's reached out to my family, following the passage of my father. Services will be held Wednesday, May 27th at Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church right here in Fayetteville. It begins at 10 a.m. funeral at 11 and graveside services after Lafayette. Now something pretty cool though. My family decided to start a scholarship in my dad's name. through the so the men's club is called the AHEPA and it's the most mouthful of words. It's the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association. Say that three times. The Ahepa was founded in the early, I want to say 1920s or so in Atlanta to combat the KKK against the Greek community. That's why I started. So we haven't finalized everything, but what so first of all if you can donate just write the check to Ahepa chapter 9. and just put Bill Pappas scholarship and we'll know what to do with it. you put that on the screen so people can see that? I will. I'm going to do it post. Okay. will. ⁓ This is my idea. My father was a worker. We were workers. We're still hands on with the restaurants, whatever. And he always had an affinity for construction and my grandfather was in the trades in Greece. So I think I want the scholarship to be for those students that want to go to trade school. Good idea. So we just opened, we just had the ribbon cutting a couple weeks ago at the Fabletech ⁓ building trade center, right on Brad Boulevard, it's the old valley plumbing and training and They do training in that. So the scholarships normally that I have but does are academic usually, but now why don't we help the people that are going to trade school? Because let's admit it, not everybody needs to go learn Shakespeare at 18 years old. That's true. So I want my father's memory to be associated with hard work and I think that's a good way to do it. I think that's awesome. My husband always says, you're studying philosophy, oh, is the philosophy factory hiring? Oh, real supportive of that guy. Okay, we gotta get him on here. He is awesome. he still active duty? He's a Peter, he's active duty, he's at 18th Airborne Corps. when anybody, my favorite thing, one of my favorite things he says, people say, oh, thank you for your service. He goes, well, thank you for paying taxes. ⁓ that's love it. It is bold. I mean, that's it. I love it. There is no military without citizenry that believes in what we're doing and pays their taxes. I mean, that's it. Well, ⁓ we're going to talk off camera some more, but I really do appreciate you being here. everybody watching, thank you for joining us during our live. ⁓ You can go to thecarolinacaptainet.com to see past previous episodes. And I'm praying to God my audio sounds good, but until Monday. Actually know where I'm be here Monday Memorial Day. It is memorial. I'm making some burgers and dogs and Wednesdays my dad's thing. So Mmm, I guess we'll see y'all in a week Yeah, yeah, we won't see you for like a week and half. We're gonna be off a week and a half Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, buddy Well to everybody out there thanks for joining us y'all have a good afternoon. Thanks